ABSTRACT
It may have been one of the most expensive sets of flights ever taken. In November of 2008,U.S. automobile executives flew to Washington D.C. to request a $34 billion bailout to help them stay alive during the financial crisis that gripped the industry. Not realizing the nonroutine nature of this mission, they did what they always did in this case, and flew to the Congressional hearings in private corporate jets. One could argue that, in the overall scheme of the industry’s woes, the cost of these flights was trivial, and perhaps even necessary for security reasons. However, the perception of this act on the part of Congress and its constituents was that this was just more evidence of the industry executives’ arrogance and insensitivity to costs. Many suggested that this just showed how out of touch this group was relative to the rest of the world, and suggested that companies run by such leaders could never be competitive against more efficient foreign competitors. It was not clear why the American taxpayer should be asked to fund the lavish lifestyles of these auto industry executives, and Senator Robert Corker perhaps reflected this perception best by concluding that “the best thing is for y’all to go away.”1 The executives did go away, and empty-handed at that. One month later, this same group returned, and they were eventually granted half of what they were looking for, $17 billion. This time, however, they drove to Washington in hybrid vehicles.2
